After three pay-per-view events were crammed in a short time frame with Payback, Elimination Chamber and Money in the Bank, the road to Battleground has felt like it will never end. We’re just a little over a week away from the show, but it can’t come soon enough, as things have been dragging along and the storylines are becoming beyond stale.
Despite all this time that WWE’s creative team has had to work out all of the details for the event, there are still things lacking and one of the biggest omissions is the complete absence of one of the company’s most popular stars, Dean Ambrose.
During that onslaught of special events, Ambrose was the guy they were built around. His matches against Seth Rollins were a lot of fun, his feud was captivating and his popularity continued to soar. Many fans were clamoring for him to actually win the title for real or at the very least, were convinced that he should win it sometime this year.
After Money in the Bank, however, he disappeared. It would be foolish to expect him to challenge for the title yet again, but Ambrose went from the top contender to someone who is an afterthought at best. No feud was set up for him to go into and he’s been stuck in limbo for the past few weeks with no clear direction whatsoever.
Roman Reigns looked poised to win the Money in the Bank briefcase, but in failing to do so, he started a feud with Bray Wyatt. Sheamus will be feuding with Randy Orton (yay?) in an attempt most likely to put him over by having him defeat a former multi-time champion. Kevin Owens and John Cena have kept their feud going and The New Day will be getting a rematch against The Prime Time Players. The Intercontinental Championship hangs in the balance of a triple threat match and Seth Rollins will be fighting Brock Lesnar of all people.
But where is Dean Ambrose?
More time has been spent on Monday Night Raw dealing with the feud between R-Truth and King Barrett than has been devoted to the guy who pseudo-won the world title just a little over a month ago. (Side note: It is sad that the King of the Ring is booked so poorly, too, but that’s another discussion for another time.) Instead of doing anything worthwhile and feuding with someone new, Ambrose took on Bo Dallas this week just to remind people that he’s still on the roster. When he’s not doing that or nothing, Ambrose is being treated as the fall guy to lose to Bray Wyatt to help further the Roman Reigns storyline or he’s wrestling Seth Rollins so he has something to do since Brock Lesnar won’t be appearing on SmackDown.
That’s not good enough for someone that was at such a high position so recently. If he were injured or filming a movie or even if Money in the Bank was two events ago, there would be more of a reason to push Ambrose aside, but as it stands right now, it just reeks of a massive oversight.
What else is frustrating about this is that WWE had an easy month for Ambrose already set up in advance. Logically, The Lunatic Fringe should not be just done with The Authority after what’s happened and move on to fighting someone like Diego or Adam Rose. There were teases that he could clash with Kane and take his frustrations out on him due to Kane’s involvement in the stable. Kane certainly has nothing else better to do and the two of them could have had some kind of a match to allow Ambrose to vent his anger. Sure, it’s not the most exciting feud out there, but it’s a softball that wouldn’t disrupt the other storylines going on and it would get Ambrose on the card and not make him come off as yesterday’s news.
This may still come to pass, but it’s been put on the backburner long enough that if it does get randomly announced on the go-home show of Raw next week, it will not have been earned and it certainly won’t be one of the reasons why people specifically want to tune in to the event. That’s a long way to fall for someone who has been so entertaining as of late and it’s entirely on WWE’s shoulders. When SummerSlam comes up, if he’s suddenly not appearing to be a hot commodity and they start thinking that he’s not a priority for the card, they should look in the mirror to find the reason why that happened.
What would you like to see happen with Dean Ambrose for Battleground? Are you optimistic that he’ll have a decent role at SummerSlam or will he be left in the shadows to wrestle on the pre-show or some other kind of demotion? What would you have done to set up a feud for him?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
